Crowdsourcing & the Future of Work

Administrator

Posted on 1.06.2013

Getting things done does not have to be difficult – at least not if you’re familiar
with and confident in crowdsourcing.

The trend of getting others (the crowd) to work on (as
well as fund and/or advocate) your projects by simply
outsourcing tasks has rocketed to prominence over the
last few years. Despite the often negative economic perception,
by any existing measurement of success, the
Web world can expect the crowdsourcing trend to continue
well into the future.

Crowdsourcing by definition is simply the division of labor
— taking a large job, breaking it down into manageable
component tasks, and then distributing it. James Rubenstein,
PM of Search Metrics at Ebay and recent speaker at
crowdsourcing conference Crowdopolis, thinks of crowdsourcing
as “many hands make light work.”

Rubinstein uses crowdsourcing in a variety of ways at
Ebay including testing inventory descriptions, testing
search result quality, and measuring the efficiency of the
search experience for users. Rubenstein’s presentation at
Crowdopolis, “Crowdsourcing Lessons from James Bond”
provided a practical view into the role that research plays in
successful crowdsourcing, how to use that research to “productionalize”
the process, and how to maintain positive
vendor relationships.

Adoption of crowdsourcing in the enterprise has been
impressive. According to Daily Crowdsource, completed
“microtasks” grew nearly 500 percent in 2010, and over 350
percent in 2011. But that’s the number of tasks, not the number
of enterprises using crowdsourcing. Those that use
crowdsourcing tend to use it quite a bit; others, not so much.
There are likely a few reasons for the slow adoption of
crowdsourcing despite its apparent popularity – namely that
there are numerous ways to leverage the crowd which
makes understanding how it can be best utilized to achieve
greater efficiency and profits in the enterprise difficult.

What types of crowdsourcing currently being used today
can you consider?

Types of Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing can be used in a variety of ways – from design,
funding, support, and task completion to name a few.
The challenge in finding the right type of crowdsourcing for
your enterprise depends on the type of tasks you need completed.

Design: One of the most popular ways to leverage crowdsourcing
for small business without a dedicated creative department
is for the purpose of design. Services including
99Designs, DesignCrowd, Prova and CrowdSpring have
emerged over the past few years to offer website, banner,
and logo design built by the crowd. In the case of 99Designs
for example, it is possible to obtain a custom-made logo in
less than 7 days for around $300 U.S. Buyers must choose
from hundreds of finished designs, but in true crowdsourcing
fashion, will only pay for the best.

Tasks: Arguably the most practical fit for any enterprise interested
in crowdsourcing and benefiting from greater
process efficiency is to break down a large unit of work to
smaller individual tasks (or microtasks) that can be completed
by the crowd. Say for example that you are engaging
in a search engine optimization campaign and want to build
an updated list that can be used for advertising. With crowdsourcing,
you could ask thousands of people to visit the
pages, and report back on the keywords they believe should be included. It’s possible to receive thousands of responses
quickly and pay pennies for each verified response. Numerous
vendors populate this “microtasking” space including
Amazon with its Mechanical Turk platform,
CloudCrowd and CrowdFlower to name a few.

Innovation
While design and task completion are popular and practical
ways to use crowdsourcing, the optimal implementation
of a crowdsourcing campaign can only be determined
by your enterprise. But think of the benefits that letting go
of at least some control can provide. Crowdsourced innovation
initiatives for example enable key stakeholders in
your business (including investors, designers, marketers,
even users) to collaborate towards the development of a
new product, service or offering. By bringing together people
with different experiences, intentions and demands, the
result is often a more complete and well-reasoned creation
— something every enterprise should at least try.

Crowdsourcing Caveat
While there are numerous benefits to crowdsourcing (faster,
cheaper and certainly more interesting than doing it alone),
there are well documented drawbacks - the most substantial
of which is quality. Crowdsourcing requires, more than
anything else, a commitment to provide clear instructions
on what you want and need. Failure to focus on this important
step will result in sifting through thousands of ideas
which are off mark at best. Take the time to explain what it
is you’re looking for and your enterprise will benefit from
the wisdom of the crowd.

Get the Crowd in Control
To ride the wave of crowdsourcing to greater efficiency and
profits for your business, it is necessary to have some background
and some guidance as you begin letting others do
the work for you.

Crowdsourced Funding for Startups
Getting things done is one thing, getting projects funded is another.
If you are in pursuit of seed money for your next project,
consider taking a funding round from the crowd. Perhaps you’ve
built a mobile application for example and need a marketing
budget to promote it. Using platforms like Kickstarter for
example, set a funding goal amount, the deadline and indicate
the rewards offered to donors. If the project is not 100% funded,
all monies are returned to donors. Learn how to use these
services and platform’s in WM’s Guide to Crowdfunding at
wsm.co/CrowdFundingInControl.